Buying the Pretense
by gveret
Summary: The story of her mother's death isn't one Lena tells people she expects to keep. Fortunately, Kara hasn't found out yet. (In which Kara finds out.)


**Warning** for the big fucking tragedy that is Lena's childhood and everything it entails. Also spoilers for season 4 episode 7. Criticism welcome and appreciated!

* * *

Lena is quite good at pretending to be whole. She's had over twenty years to perfect her act, and quite a bit of very compelling motivation. If there's one good thing to be said of Luthor education, it is that it's certainly _motivating_.

You wouldn't know at a glance that Lena is incapable of true human emotion. You wouldn't know it at a conversation, or a date, or a night in bed, or even a thorough crying session, probably. That's just how skilled of an actress she is.

Lena is so experienced at mimicking grief and anger and passion and heartache, she convinces herself sometimes. Certainly, she's spent plenty of nights curled around her own pain, plenty of days fighting fervently for her careful reconstruction of morality. But she does know it's nothing but a pretense.

Kara tells her she's brilliant, or brave, or kind, and for a moment Lena glows; but she reminds herself that Kara doesn't know, that Kara's forced to unfairly assess Lena's character on a basis that's completely fictionalized, and she reins in her overeager ego. Hungry for praise and so ready to accept it, no matter how unearned.

 _No need for self pity, either,_ she chides herself. The only path forward is hard work.

Strangers assume they know the kind of monster Lena is, but they're all just a few degrees off. Ironically, no one but her family knows the full truth about Lena. No one but her family, and now, one very dead, very silent man.

But Kara doesn't know, yet, that Lena is irredeemable, and has always been. Kara doesn't know that she is empty inside. Kara doesn't know, at least, for now. And until she finds out, Lena can have this: a person who sees her as whole, a place to call home, a family she can finally love properly.

(When Kara finds out: would she be horrified? She spends so much of her time, so much of herself, striving toward what's right. To have sunk all this effort and life and love into something that's wrong would surely be devastating.

Would she be heartbroken? She's lost so much, and she's destined to keep losing. If Lena were a better person, she'd have saved her that pain. But there's no force in the universe that could compel Lena to let go first.

Would she be empathetic? A true hero feels for even the worst kinds of monsters, doesn't she? The thought sticks in Lena's throat like a bone.

It doesn't matter. She hasn't, yet, and maybe, if the universe would like to be merciful for a change, she never will.)

.

.

When she returns home the next night after working through the mountain of paperwork a death in one's lab entails, Lena's tentative plans of a long bath, a hot drink, and several hours ruminating sleeplessly in bed are rudely interrupted by a knock on her door.

"Eve told me about your subject dying," is Kara's characteristically tactless greeting.

Lena would be lying if she said she didn't appreciate it. She lets Kara inside with a brief but welcome hug. "It's fine. It wasn't entirely unexpected."

"She told me you've been thinking about your mom, too."

Lena goes cold from head to toe. This is it then, isn't it? "Oh," she breathes.

"I'm sorry to violate your privacy like that," Kara says.

Lena shakes her head. "I get it. Um."

"She was just worried about you. Said you had a tendency to blame yourself, and don't I know it!" Kara gave a short, fake laugh. "I'm sorry I didn't wait for you to come to me. I got impatient."

Lena clenches her shaking hands and forces herself to be honest. "I—Kara, I won't lie to you. I would've kept it from you indefinitely. Even now, I regret you knowing."

Kara frowns. "Oh." She looks a little sad. As much as Lena wishes she'd never caused Kara pain, a part of her is darkly gratified to be hard to let go.

Lena laughs hollowly. "I—I guess I'll miss you," she says. Looks away from that lovely, candid face.

"What do you mean? Are you going somewhere?"

Lena laughs some more. "Don't toy with me, Kara. I do have feelings, you know."

Kara hovers closer, hands held out, palms open. An appeasing gesture. Surely she isn't _scared_? "Yeah? I know? I don't know what you're talking about, though."

Lena crosses her arms. A nonthreatening position. "Are you saying you aren't feeling betrayed right now? After I lied to you about my whole self, who I am as a person? Are you really telling me you wouldn't mind having Supergirl's alter ego be associated with a soulless monster?"

Kara's eyes widen. "What are you talking about? Cuz I _know_ you couldn't be talking about Lena Luthor, one of the best, bravest, most thoughtful people I know."

She seems sincere. "Shit." A jolt of pure panic shoots through Lena. "Did she—Eve didn't tell you?" Of course she didn't. She couldn't. She doesn't _know_. And now Lena in her loud, blinding guilt has gone and ruined everything for no good reason at all.

"Lena, I don't know what you mean! Eve told me you were having a hard time because your patient died and you blame yourself and it's the anniversary of your mom's passing which apparently you blame yourself for too!"

The only saving grace of this whole disaster had been that Lena didn't have to see Kara's face when she found out. Now she's lost that too.

" _Shit_." Lena collapses onto the couch, digs two fingers into the bridge of her nose. "Sit down. I'll tell you the whole story."

Kara sits. So Lena does.

Kara listens quietly, if not quite still. Her hands tighten into angry fists, legs bouncing nervously, face a theatre of horrified expressions. Multiple times throughout it seems like she wants to get up and just leave.

Honestly, Lena can't blame her.

"But deep down, I've always known I was just as much of a Luthor," Lena concludes her tale.

Kara swallows. To her credit, she's still here. "That… that sounded like a really good final sentence," Kara says, her voice thick. "But where's the part where you're anything but a wonderful, deeply hurt person?"

Lena blinks at her. For a moment, her words in that sequence fail to cohere. "What?"

Kara swallows again, wipes at her eyes. Lena realizes, startlingly, she's fighting back tears. "Lena… do you really know _nothing_ about human psychology?"

"What?" she repeats. "Uh—"

"I'm not trying to hurt your intellectual pride, but." Kara shrugs. "Have you ever seen a therapist?"

"Yes," Lena says, a hint of indignation sneaking in from the ether. "I was in therapy all through boarding school. It was quite awful."

Kara sighs. "Right. Have you ever seen a therapist not picked out by your scary mom?"

"Oh," is all Lena can think to say.

"Yeah." Kara rubs the back of her hand over her eyes again, takes a deep breath. Turns to Lena with conviction shining bright and clear in her eyes. "Listen. I'm not a doctor or anything. I'm not even human. But I grew up around both, and, also, I watched my whole world die. I'm pretty sure a child having an acute stress reaction to something like that is completely, perfectly normal."

Lena shakes her head. Kara, bless her heart, has mistaken Lena for some sort of innocent victim. "You don't understand," she tries to explain. "It wasn't—I just stood there. I didn't scream. I didn't even _try_ to help."

"Was there any other adult around who could have helped you?" Kara asks her gently.

"No, I—it was just me, and I did nothing."

"So screaming wouldn't have been helpful."

"But I—I didn't move either. I didn't even try to get in there after her!"

"Are you telling me you were an Olympic swimmer at four years old? Did you have some kind of super strength you never told me about?" Kara covers Lena's fidgeting hands in her steady, immovable one. "Lena, listen to me. You were a child. Something unimaginably horrible was happening right in front of your eyes, and there was nothing you could do. With how smart and passionate I know you were back then, you must have known that. And that must have killed you. That grief and powerlessness left you paralyzed. Lena, you aren't a monster." Kara leans forward, presses her palm against Lena's heart. "Right here, you're still a kid who is in pain."

"I—I wasn't," Lena stutters. The story she's always told herself wasn't pleasant, but it was familiar. Hearing it contradicted, she feels disconcertingly lost. "I'm sorry, Kara. I wish you were right. I know you want me to be a good person. But I wasn't in pain. I was just… nothing. Kara, I think I'm missing the part of me that knows how to love."

Kara regards her silently for a long moment, her touch unwavering, a hot handprint on Lena's skin, pulsing gently with the beat of her heart. "Did you want your mom to die?" Kara asks finally.

Lena jerks away from her. " _What?_ How dare you!"

Kara's hand hovers in the air before dropping into her lap. But her eyes still bore into Lena's, inexorable. "If you didn't want her to die, then why didn't you save her?"

"I—"

"You were right there," Kara continues tonelessly. "You saw it happen. Why didn't you do anything?"

"I—I couldn't!" Lena cries. "I tried, but I just couldn't! I couldn't swim, I couldn't fly, I couldn't even open my mouth. It was so—so _slow_ , it took so long, and I just stood there! I tried—I tried to think of something that could save her. I should run for help—but what if I can't make it in time? My mom will disappear and I won't be able to find her. I should go in after her—but what if I drown too? I was so scared, I didn't know—I didn't know what to do!"

Kara drops onto her knees in front of her and draws her into a tight embrace. "I know. I know." She rocks them back and forth, hand sliding into Lena's hair. "It's not your fault. It's not your fault. Please, Lena, it's not your fault."

Lena clings to her, and cries.

Several milliliters of tears and other fluids and possibly an entire week later, Lena's sobs finally fade to hitched breaths and the occasional hiccup. She's quite forgotten how exhausting fully and openly crying can be.

"C'mere," she mumbles, tugging on Kara's arm.

Kara hovers onto the couch, hemming Lena in between her body and the back rest. The tight delineation of her body is inordinately comforting, and Kara is very warm.

Lena breathes, and lets herself soak in the comfort, the quiet, Kara's familiar alien scent.

She feels spent, exhausted, wrung out, and… oddly light.

Maybe guilt really is quite a heavy burden.

Lena bumps her nose against Kara's collar bone. "Thank you," she murmurs.

"I really think you should go to therapy," Kara whispers in her ear.

Lena laughs weakly and nuzzles in closer. "Yeah," she sighs. "I think you're right." She kisses Kara's neck. "Excellent pillow talk, by the way."

"You like that? Wait until you hear my pro toilet cleaning tips."

Maybe, after all, it was silly of Lena to think that she's incapable of love. It certainly feels that way, with the living, breathing, quipping proof of it right in front of her. And around her. And underneath her lips.

A little silly maybe, yeah.


End file.
